The new SSD Thread (Benchmarks, Brands, News and Advice)

I gotta say it... Why spend $40 on e-booster, and who knows how much for the storage solution to put the cache on? you'll be pretty lucky to even get an 8GB thumb drive that works for $15... and a 16GB express card SSD? Forget about it!

I suppose it is a solution for those who already have a crappy express card SSD. This way it's not just sitting in a drawer somewhere, I can't see how this would be worthwhile if you had to purchase everything for this purpose.

Just get an SSD....

The benefits will be faster than ebooster and encompass ALL you data not just a few choice programs... except maybe movies or music or pics if you have tons of them...

 

Mormegil83, I would be the first to Not recommend eBoostr if it 'needed' an ExpressCard SSD to work acceptably. The truth is, that a Lexar Lightning Series USB stick works even better speed-wise (almost 10 MB/s faster, except that it sticks out of the computer) and depending on what controller (is it fast?) you have for your SD card slot, then those might be the best bang for the buck.

Why I chose the ExpressCard SSD route is because I happened to have one already and I wanted to experiment with the larger size of cache I could try.

My point with that post was that Even with such an underperforming device, the system still has some/most of the benefits of a current SSD except for ultimate performance (and the current ultimate prices for SSD's).

When I saw your post, I once again disabled eBoostr and rebooted my computer to see if I would be able to 'feel' its benefits, without measuring them (or in other words... is this all in my head?). Without question, the system seemed to run as if 'broken' (just like I've read when people get used to an SSD based system).

After being satisfied that I can 'feel' the difference, I again measured different aspects and was actually astonished how much slower my notebook is without eBoostr.

.........................Normal......eBoostr
Avast A/V............48 sec......20 sec
Outlook...............64 sec......15 sec
Safari 24 Tabs......68 sec......11 sec
Safari This Thread.18 sec.......2 sec

Again, I don't recommend to buy eBoostr and to buy an ExpressCard SSD to simply get those numbers.

But, if you have a spare USB stick, a spare ExpressCard storage card or a spare SD card (and on board card reader) the purchase of eBoostr is a 'no-brainer' if it gives your system the same kind of boost that I am seeing.

Or, another way to look at this (given that we already have the 'hardware' side of the eBoostr equation) is; how can anyone recommend an SSD at ten times the cost when for a 'mere' $40 dollars we get performance like the above? (Why '10 times the cost'? Because I consider the minimum usable SSD size at 160GB).

One more thing, eBoostr does indeed speed up the whole system (not just certain programs like you assume).

Hope this clarifies things for you? I would be thrilled if you gave it a try and told us your thoughts too. Even if you just used 'spare' RAM as your cache device (if you have 8GB or more).

One other point; I have installed this also on my desktop with 8GB of RAM and 3 Raptors and 1 Velociraptor and even there the difference is very noticeable (I'm too lazy to 'benchmark' it though) with only a 4GB USB stick for the eBoostr cache.

The good thing about the desktop is that it doesn't matter to use a USB key that sticks out (just use one of the rear ports and forget about it).

 

^^^ it takes 15sec to open outlook? wow. it's like 3seconds on my thinkpad.

 

it does test it during WEI, and if it's not enhancing performance, it gets disabled. so just let it be how ever it handles it, as it knows it best.

 

What do these numbers mean? I don't use any of these programs, but with my 5400 RPM hard drive, it takes me on the order of 3 seconds (maybe a bit less) to open Firefox, Internet Explorer or Thunderbird.

 

tiller, i'm glad it speeds up your system. I still would just put the money towards a descent SSD, though...

But for those unable or unwilling to take the plunge, from what you said and without doing any research of my own, it sounds just fine.

 

thanks again

and what are this "lags" and "freezes" i just read about on this and on the last page? How often do they come? How long are they? Is my complete os unusable for that moment?

pretty scared now

Ah and one more thing:
How much faster a is a normal sata (7200rpm like the standart one in my laptop) compared to the intel postville X25-M (the newer one) at writing? Cause i found a benachmark which showed that some ocz ssd was double as much faster than the intel postville.. so i wonder if it will take ages to unzip something compared to my current hdd :x

 

hi
u playing resident five on pc ?? already out? how it looks like nice?
and about that text u cant read u can read it in file menu there is everything
how quickly is game loaded ?

 

Hi
did you used hdd erase full? you formated it fully ? that may cause slow down maybe

 

guys I got some benchmarks of SSDs
http://images.google.co.uk/imgres?i...&sa=N&start=42&um=1&ei=KtG3SpeCF8qC-gbl5PnbCQ

and take a lok on this video : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96dWOEa4Djs

 

Well, I have the Intel drive, and have a ton of issues with it, so just as you bash the Samsung drive, I'll bash the Intel drive.
All I'm saying is that some drives work well for certain people, and other drives work well for others.

 

IntelUser,

Thanks for that info about caching! Is there any more reading (links?) I could do on that subject?

Yes, the ability to use the Braidwood hardware as we see fit (with Intel software or otherwise) will be the best part of Braidwood.

Actually, doing a quick search for Braidwood, its already been predicted that Braidwood will slow down SSD's takeover of the HD market.

http://www.infoworld.com/d/hardware/intel-braidwood-technology-may-sap-ssd-demand-939

 

This is opening my main pst file which is getting hard to keep below 6.5GB.

When I first installed Office 2007, Outlook opened in less than a second.

The recommended maximum size for pst files for Outlook 2003 or greater is around 20GB (although there is no built-in hard limit), but I've always run into issues (too, too slow) when it gets anywhere over about 8GB on my older laptops.

See:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/932086

Yes, I like to keep all my email correspondence!

 

Quote:
Originally Posted by tilleroftheearth
.........................Normal......eBoostr
Avast A/V............48 sec......20 sec
Outlook...............64 sec......15 sec
Safari 24 Tabs......68 sec......11 sec
Safari This Thread.18 sec.......2 sec


Sorry;

Avast is an 64bit Antivirus program I use. These times in seconds is how long it takes to simply open Avast, before you do a scan (it is scanning all the files that are loaded in memory first).

Outlook is equivalent to Thunderbird (I believe); I am timing how long my email program takes to load a 6.47GB pst file and be ready for commands (I can tell by when it shows my last message in the preview pane and I can read it).

Safari is just a web browser, but here I'm opening it with 24 tabs and waiting for it to be 'responsive' in any/all tabs.

The last one I'm simply loading Safari and typing in This thread's address and waiting for the page to be 'live' (I can scroll, etc. in it).

In each case, I'm seeing noticeable to massive speed increases which are much greater than the margin of error, but more importantly these speed increases are felt throughout the entire O/S experience.

 

Mormegil83, with your dual Agilities in RAID0, I'm sure you don't need any performance boost, but that is why your input would be so valuable - if a program like eBoostr which seems to me so similar to Intel's upcoming Braidwood, makes a difference on your system, then we'll be catching a glimpse of the future.

If it really does increase your performance noticeably (and I would be surprised if it did actually), then in a few months the 'performance' crowd will be all using Sata 6 SSD's + Braidwood and, and... and I'll know to save my money for a new system(s) instead of simply upgrading what I'm currently using.

Of course, I can't make you try eBoostr, but I'm sure I won't be the only one interested in your results.

Either way, thanks for the conversation, so far.

 

This SSD supply issue is really annoying. I had an order at the original $450 price and no resellers selling at that price is able to secure stock as the distributors simply refuse to sell at that price anymore. However, NewEgg continues to get new stock as they are selling at a much higher $650 price point.

It's ok for resellers to raise prices when supply is low, but they have to deliver the original orders that they have committed. I believe the resellers are just hoping people grow impatient and eventually cancel their orders (because if they cancel the orders which they have charged and committed to, they may get a lawsuit). At this rate, I could be waiting 1 year for my order to get delivered. Is there any resolution for consumers being bullied by the resellers and distributors like Synnex and Ingram?

 

I just finished installing and updating everything (although i messup with some drivers had to reinstall some stuff) but this is my first AS bench i do on my X25-M G2 160GB.

 

Hi guys... I am going to buy this SSD from dell because it is very cheap for a 256GB SSD. However the website does not contain any information on his read and write speed. Can someone tell me the speed? Also do i need to update anything for this SSD such as the firmware? the link is here : http://accessories.us.dell.com/sna/products/Solid_State_Disk_SSD/productdetail.aspx?c=us&l=en&s=dhs&cs=19&sku=341-8981

 

I've heard that's a Gen 2 Samsung drive, but I don't know if it's ever been 100% confirmed. If it is, it would essentially be a Corsair P256.

 

It is a gen 2 Samsung, which is what the Corsair is based off of. I'm glad that the price is back down, making the Samsung still the cheapest per GB compared to Intel and Indilinx.

 

You do have my interest with this 'eBoostr' but i just can't justify spending $40 on software that probably (or even if there is a doubt) won't make a difference in my system. however, if i get some free time i may read up on it a little...

I'm actually evem more interested in Braidwood. (I like learning about hardware more than software) I'm thinking its intels plan to continually push bandwidth and size of there 'ONFi (open NAND flash interface)' (stole quote from that article linked on the previous page) to eventually take over the storage market...

 

Mormegil83, you don't need to buy it to try it.

http://www.eboostr.com/

The above link is the main home page which will allow you to download the current version (v3) of eBoostr with no limits except that eboostr will only work for 4 hours after each reboot. After the 4 hour limit has past, you must reboot again to continue to use it (for another 4 hours).

Like I mentioned before, I tried v3 and it seemed the system was sometimes 'sluggish' with it (maybe once or twice a day), although the majority of the time it did boost performance.

The version I'm using is the v4 which is still beta. The best part is that this beta is valid (no 4 hour time limits) until October 31, 2009. I still haven't purchased it yet myself. I will re-evaluate the final version when it is ready to be shipped.

http://beta.eboostr.com/download/

The above link will allow you to download v4 beta for no charge.

If you need some tips with setting it up, I would be glad to offer my help. The best way to test it is to use it for a while (a week or two?) and then disable it and see if the difference is noticeable.

The program is supposed to update it's cache every five hours or so, but sometimes (every two or three days) I click on the re-build cache file button myself (this adds new programs you may have used since the last time it's cache was updated).

To re-build the cache from scratch, hold down the ALT key and then click the re-build cache file button. This was especially useful when I was using a cache file of less than 4GB and I installed a new program.

Specifically with the v4 beta, when you first install and chose a cache device it asks to build the cache; I chose yes, but I would always need to rebuild the cache a second time for it to be properly configured.

The best performance gains were always a few days after I had thoroughly used my computer and then clicked to rebuild the cache file. (This was after I had set an 11GB cache file size).

I have no ties to eBoostr, just a very happy beta user so far. I believe that the ultimate system is where the hardware and the software are optimized for each other.

See Anandtech for a comparison of Intel, AMD platforms with regards to battery life and also with regards to different browsers and different O/S's - including Ubuntu.

http://anandtech.com/mobile/showdoc.aspx?i=3642

Spoiler: Intel with Win 7 and IE8 seems like a solid choice for maximum computing power and longest battery life (even if XP edges out ahead slightly).

I'm still testing to see if using IE8 really boosts battery life compared to my current preference Safari (Safari is consistently the worst in the Anandtech article above for battery life).

Looking forward to your next few posts!

 

Wow actually now ya got me. I'll try to make time this week to get it running...

So you say even just something like an 8GB usb stick should be enough to show performance gains? i don't need a higher bandwidth than USB?

 

Yes! Yes! and Yes!

I can't predict what it will do on your setup, but based on what I observed with my equipment, I do believe/hope you'll see/feel/measure a difference. Now, that measured difference may be small because your system is so fast already, but I believe it should still 'feel' faster.

My reasoning above is based on the fact that eBoostr basically allows the system to read from the hard drive and from it's cache simultaneously, in effect RAIDing the reads (or, in your case, adding a third 'drive' to your RAID0).

Another observation is that when I ask the system to do something, the CPU's get pegged closer to 100% (for a shorter, total time) than without eBoostr. This must mean that they are getting the information they need to process quicker and are spending less time waiting for it, right?

Since CPU's operate at one or two orders of magnitude faster than even current SSD's, the effects of eBoostr should be noticeable (at least in theory, with optimized algorithms and efficient code). If you can confirm this theory for us, then Braidwood, here I come!

If your USB stick is really too slow to make a positive effect, you could always try half or one GB of RAM with eBoostr - just to see if the 'theory' works (I think you only have 4GB RAM).

I upgraded to 8GB of RAM, but with my old 4GB of RAM the 'sweet spot' for eBoostr using RAM as cache was around 1536KB. This limits how many programs you can have running at once, of course, but the computer was so responsive that it didn't matter opening and closing programs as you needed them.

Not that I recommend using RAM as cache (unless you have 8GB+), but it may be what's needed in your case to see/feel the effects of eBoostr with your RAID0 SSD's (but I hope not!).

Okay, now where is the 'back to the future' button on this forum so that I could read your post(s) you'll be writing next week?

Thanks!

 

Is there anyway/anything I can search/google based off the picture posted below to see if this SSD that I got from the manufacture when I ordered my notebook supports TRIM when Windows 7 comes out?




Current Serial ATA Transfer Mode: Generation 2
Model: Samsung MMCRE28GFMXP-MVB
Firmware: VBM18S1Q
Native Command Queuing Support: Yes
Hard Drive Data Cache Enabled: Yes

 

Hmmm just read through their website, and i hate to let you down, but i'm not going to try it out.

It seems it offers benefits of Vista to XP users, which is great, but I'm on Vista anyway. It also enhances access times to "your favorite programs" by using flash memory instead of HDD which with my SSDs obviously i'm getting the best of that, and it saves battery life from less hits on the HDD. Again with SSD i don't really worry about that...

So to really see a gain you either need to not have SSD or Vista or neither. I have both and can't see it speeding anything up...

 

Its the samsung gen2 128gb MLC. currently it does not support trim and there is no way for end users to flash new firmware that will, however, Samsung says they're working on that.

Unfortunately your firmware doesn't even support the background garbage collecting (kind of like TRIM) that the latest firmware supports. You may be able to ship the drives back to the manufacturer or samsung to have the drives flashed with the latest firmware.

Background garbage collecting is a process the drive does when it's idle to essentially clean up the drive. AKA return unused cells to a 'like new' status to combat degradation...

Edit: Well maybe your drive does support background GC not sure but i'm guessing 'S' comes after 'C'

 

thanks for the response, i'm pretty sure Samsung's not gonna flash new firmware onto the drive and i can't go without a hard drive not even for a day

EDIT: Just saw your edit....lol, Anand says "How can you ensure you get a model with the right firmware revision? Pick a religion and start praying, because that’s the best you can do."

 

You may be right about using an SSD with eBoostr - but that's what testing is for, no? I don't expect battery life to be improved, but instead, the 'responsiveness' of the system (like I said before... a RAID for the random reads).

I am running Win 7 x64 and am seeing (huge) improvements. The beta even says it supports Win 7.

I have also tried it on a Vista x64 bit system and the improvement was more than noticeable (they outdid MS's own SuperFetch in Vista!).

Again, I can't force you to try this, but you are reading about the current version (I think), not the v4 beta I'm recommending.

 

I'll dig around a bit but i don't really want to put time into something just to confirm something that we are pretty sure of and either way really isn't going to be a $40 improvement in my opinion.

like i said if it wasn't for the fact that i already have SSDs and Vista, I would totally go for it, but i just don't see how things can become more instant than 'instant'...

 

Hi mehaman I have the exactly same ssd and almost exactly the same laptop a tiny better ..
are you satisfied with samsung ssd ?
and why you want new firmware? I think speed is very good ... noo need update ..
only intel needed firmware update cos intel had plenty , plenty problems with their ssd's unstable slow etc.. they overcalculated themselves, and then they had to change strategy so they first time quietly released updates after updates ..

 

Thanks for even considering it, really!

It's just that it's been pretty stable for me (closer to rock solid) and although our minds say 'we are pretty sure' (I agree with you on this), I just want to know, you know?

If you did consider installing the beta on your system for even a couple of days, I don't even want/need benchmarks - I'll graciously take your impression of what impact it had on your system, if any.

 

SLOW 4K !!! Glad to see im not the only one!

 

It's not the speed I'm worried about, I'm worried about SSD Degradation as the the drive continues to fill up.

The speed of the drive will continue to go worse if there is no "garbage collection" or OS Trim support to suppress the degradation

 

Not better than intel but still cool , nice and fast enough
what is that 4k and 4 64 ? where i wil use it in real life world ?

 

4k is benchmarked to represent the random read/writes that are constantly discussed (mostly writes are discussed)..

 

And guys what about this :
http://www.engadget.com/2009/09/21/toshiba-announces-first-ssd-drives-using-new-mini-sata-interface/
I have actualy that mini sata slot empty in my laptop

 

Yeah but tell me where I will meet 4k write/read instead of benchmarks tests etc ?

 

Almost everywhere.

-When you are opening a webpage from a browser, all the caches and cookies take few KB of data.
-Open up Outlook and your messages are also in the few KB range.
-Even some boot files and pagefiles take few KB.
-When you are transferring data, the files are usually small. Since large MB capacity files aren't common.

4K read is not that important, but 4K write is. But that's on an SSD, regular HDDs are completely different.

 

From everything I've read, everything (sooner or later) will be 4K Random R/W as you use the drive (if the controller is properly using every cluster to minimize writing/burning out the same few clusters over and over again - like the Intel's do).

So although the 4 times lead the Intel MLC drives have over the Indilux drives seem like overkill, over time, this lead is what will still let the Intel drive 'feel' fast, instead of the Samsung's which drop down to below HD levels (even though the hard drive they're compared to are the VRaptors, this huge drop is very noticeable/painful when you're used to SSD speeds - even if this speed only lasted for a few weeks).

 

Thank You very much for clear explanation .

 

Has anyone seen this??

Forget about 100K or even 300K IOP PCI Express flash:

http://www.semiaccurate.com/2009/09/22/larrabee-breaks-cover-last/

"The last thing was SSDs, and Intel is doing what OCZ, SuperTalent and many enterprise players are doing, putting multiple SSDs on a PCIe card. In this case, Intel put seven of their SSDs on a single card, and it was fast. How fast? Over a million, 1.076 million to be precise, IOPS."

 

So, does this prove that Intel is King?

 

Sounds like sequential read IOPS, since the 64GB X25-E only gets 35K IOPS for 4K random reads (5K IOPS on the average mix) and it says Intel only used 7 drives. If it is sequential read IOPS then this isn't impressive. Unless this is a predictor for their new X25-E drives

 

ShopBLT pushed back 160GB G2 to 10/12.

I hope newegg brings the price down soon, or a low price vendor like ZipZoomFly gets the drives in stock soon, because I'm now on the 5400rpm drive that came stock with my Lenovo and, after months of being on an SSD, it's sloooooooooow enough to be torture!

EDIT: Screw it, cancelled ShopBLT and ordered from ValleySeek: http://www.valleyseek.com/product/show/169567. They apparently have them in stock and they have a good Google Checkout rating.

 

How do people like the OCZ Summit 120GB drives? ZZF has a pretty good deal on these right now.

 

Remember I told you that Firefox was lagging so I went back to using IE? Time to switch again. Yea back to Firefox.

 

Assuming ValleySeek uses the same distributors as ShopBLT, e.g. Synnex, Ingram, etc. the 14 shown is not likely going to be allocated to them, but let me know if they do have them in stock (which is going to be a big surprise). All these online resellers do not keep these products in stock but drop ship from the main warehouses, which is why if one is out of stock, so are the others. The 20 or so units which came in stock on the 21st were allocated to NewEgg exclusively as I believe they got them at higher prices and is a much larger reseller. So, while NewEgg can command $600+ for these drives, everyone will just have to wait it out.

 

relax, your benchmarks of 80gb intel are ok, and ~30mb/s 4k write is not slow.

I have the same results of my intel g2 as you.

 

For those interested in getting the 80GB G2 asap, TankGuys has them in stock for $270: http://www.tankguys.com/hard-drives/intel-x-25m-80gb-solid-state-disk.html

Pricey but available, and not as gouge-y as newegg.